AusBonsai

Great progression Steven. I love the look of this tree.

G'day,

Last month Jonden spotted some saw dust around the base of the trunk and after investigating he pulled out 2 curl grubs from the trunk! They had made their home in the deadwood section an have caused a bit of mess at the back of the trunk. I'll clean it up and preserve the wood in the near future.
Gave the foliage a pluckin' last night and applied a bit more wire at the apex and to some secondary branches.
Regards,
Steven

Lucky it was only on the back side! Still looks great I think

Thats a shame. Damn grubs

Yes, the tell-tale sawdust is always an ominous sign. I usually cringe thinking its borers. Borers are the other revolting little pests that do similar damage.

Hi Steven,
We have a fair bit of trouble with curl grubs and I have been trialling confidor tablets to try and eradicate the problem. They seem to like all of our trees but do the most damage on deodars !! they kill them--- so far ( after 16 months ) the tabs seem to be working but we will know more this spring ( repotting time ) As an aside I bought an angophera a few months ago and it turned out to have 6 of the little mongrels happily feeding away.i bare rooted it repotted in my mix along with a confidor tab.
Anyone who tells you diatomite will fix the problem is wrong.the gum had been planted in diatomite and zeolite mix.
Regards Steve

Almost 18 months since the last update... I gave this one a clean up last night in preparation for The School of Bonsai show this weekend so thought I'd post the before and afters.

Must have missed this post... Great looking tree and progression! Looking better than a jbp imo

Very nice Steven.... very nice.

very nice ---and a good believable taper at the first major trunk chop area

This is Looking brilliant. It's design is really shining through since I saw you style it in Canberra.

Love it mate !

very nice indeed.

Cool! Looking forward to seeing it in person this weekend

Beautiful combo Mr Steve! Truly lovely tree - great work, well done!

is there an effective needle length reduction method for these, other than trimming

Casuarina are not conifers and do not have needles. What looks like needles are actually the young branches and the leaves are tiny and present at nodes. As the stems age they loose the green colour. Best way to trim is to give the stems a little twist and they break off at a node.